“I onderstood ez how he aimed ter bide away longer,” Birt remarked.
“He did count on stayin’ longer,” said Tim, “but he rid night an’ day ter git hyar sooner. It ’pears like ter me he war in sech a hurry so ez ter start
me
ter work, and nuthin’ else in this worl’. I owe Nate a debt, ye see, an’ I hev ter work it out. I hev been so onlucky ez I couldn’t make out ter pay him nohow in the worl’. Ye see, I traded with Nate fur a shoat, an’ the spiteful beastis sneaked out’n my pen, an’ went rootin’ round the aidge o’ the clearin’, an’ war toted off bodaciously by a bar ez war a-prowlin’ round thar. An’ I got no good o’ that thar shoat, ’kase the bar hed him, but I hed to pay fur him all the same. An’ dad gin his cornsent ter Nate ter let me work a month an’ better fur him, ter pay out’n debt fur the shoat.”
“What work be you-uns goin’ ter do?” Birt had a strong impression, amounting to a conviction, that there was something behind all this, which he was slowly approaching.
“Why,” said Tim, in surprise, “hain’t ye hearn bout’n Nate’s new land what he hev jes’ got ‘entered’ ez he calls it? He hev got a grant fur it from the land-office down yander in Sparty, whar he hev been.”
“New land - ’
entered
!’” faltered Birt.
Tim nodded. “Nate fund a trac’ o’ land a-layin’ ter suit his mind what b’longed ter nobody but the State - vacant land, ye see - an’ so he went ter the ‘entry-taker,’ they calls him, an’ gits it ‘entered,’ an’ the surveyor kem an’ medjured it, an’ then Nate got a grant fur it, an’ now it air his’n. The Gov’nor o’ the State hev sot his name ter that thar grant - the Gov’nor o’ Tennessee!” reiterated Tim pridefully. “An’ the great seal o’ the State!”